Bad Blood
by Whistler84
Summary: In the course of three nights, Faith is exposed to a whole new world in the NY city. Blade crossover.


Title: Bad Blood  
  
Author: WhistlerGirl  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy, Angel, or Blade.  
  
Spoilers: All seasons of Buffy, including the series finale episode. Up to the fifth season in Angel. And the first Blade Movie, heavily based of the original script by David S. Goyer. Rating: "R" for language and violent content.  
  
Author's notes: Please read and review. This is my first attempt at a fanfic, and I can't improve without your feedback.  
  
-- Bad Blood  
  
New York.  
  
To so much of the world, New York was the place to be. A high energized, fast track city of all cities, never stopping to rest or sleep. But Faith knew, even just after a month of living here, there was more truth to that than most realized. This truly was a city that never sleeps. But these nightcrawlers weren't the type that tourist would like much.  
  
Faith, however, liked them just fine.  
  
The New York that Faith knew was a decaying no man's land, inhabited by the condemned and hungry vampires. Just her type. She knew how to deal with the scores of nightly bloodsuckers that feed on the unsuspecting population. It was what she was born to do.  
  
She was the Slayer, one of many now. But she was damn good at what she did and the City of NY was the perfect place to do it. After facing the First Evil, seeing the destruction of the Hellmouth, and finally siding with the right side, she needed New York almost as much as New York needed her. It was a place for her to start over with a clean slate.  
  
No one knew her here and no one gave a damn that she may have been a killer once. That she was once all the things that her charge fought against, all the things that she was meant to destroy. But that was in the past now, and she was determined to keep it there.  
  
Just like she was determined to ride this city of as many vampires as she could, starting with the one she was with.  
  
"So," Faith said, toying with the idea of staking him now and saving herself anymore time. But then he might be leading her to other vampires, and that could have great potential in the "fun" category. "Where are we going?" Xavier, or so he called himself, turned and smiled at her. If looks could devour, she'd be his dinner by now. (Or so he thought.) "It's a surprise."  
  
Faith grinned back, playing along. "I like surprises."  
  
He snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her closer as they walked. She could feel the chill of his skin and wondered how so many girls could ever fall for this without getting at least a bit wigged out. The guy's hands felt colder then ice . . . and they were now sneaking down to her backside.  
  
Oh yeah, she was going to enjoy staking this vamp.  
  
He pulled her towards a large industrialized building, separating from her and walking ahead. He pushed open the double door entrance with one hand and entered.  
  
Faith realized they were entering a Meat Packing Plant, and wondered why he brought her here. Was this where they brought their victims so they wouldn't leave any evidence behind? Did the bodies go - augh - into grocery stores marked as beef? She caught glimpses of carcasses being hacked apart in the back, but didn't have time to get much of a look because Xavier stopped in front of a large steel door. She could hear the faintest hint of dance music coming from beyond, and suddenly she knew she was getting herself into more then just an average slaying night.  
  
The door opened and Faith was greeted with the sight of hundreds of dancing bodies, clad in heavy leather and latex, and covered in tattoos and body piercings. That didn't bother Faith much, she'd partied with worse S & M.  
  
What was bothering her were her slayer senses. Every single one of the hundred people in this room were vampires.  
  
Definitely not her average slaying night.  
  
"Fuck me," She muttered in exasperation. She wanted a little fun tonight in her slaying, but this would be suicide.  
  
"What was that?" Xavier asked, turning around. His eyes were gleaming with expectation.  
  
Faith shrugged, "I didn't know this place existed."  
  
He grinned, "Few do."  
  
He turned around and Faith had nothing else to do but follow. She needed to think of a plan and fast. The stake and two small sharp weapons she had hidden beneath her clothing were going to do jack-shit in a situation like this. She needed backup or a way out of here.  
  
Don't get Faith wrong, she could handle herself. And she'd be lying if she said a part of her didn't look around and mutter the words "jackpot," but that part was usually the one that got her into the type of trouble she's been trying to avoid. She'd love to try and take all these vamps on, and perhaps in earlier years, she would have tried, but now she was older and arguably wiser.  
  
She'd be dead in a couple of minutes if she tried anything. Sure, she'd take a few dozen of them with her, but it wasn't enough incentive to try.  
  
And then, Faith noticed a drop of something splatter onto her hand. She looked down at it and noticed that it looked an awful lot like blood, and her slayer senses soon confirmed that. Slowly, she raised her eyes upwards to the ceiling cautiously. Nothing there except . . .  
  
Blood showered down from the sprinkler heads in the ceiling, drenching the dancers in a matter of seconds.  
  
"Oh, gross." She muttered, grossed out and pissed at the same time. These were her favorite threads.  
  
Xavier turned and flashed her a grin, blood dripping down to glisten his fangs. "How do you like this surprise?"  
  
Faith looked around, noticing that everyone around her was flashing their fangs, too. She took one long look, and grinned back predatorily. Too late to back out now, might as well have fun. "Nothing impressive."  
  
And then, if your eyes weren't supernatural, you would have had difficulty seeing what happened next. In a blur of fangs, fists, and fury the fight began. A few vampires edged into the fight while most stood back and watched the entertaining show. Faith easily threw off one after another, wiping out her stakes and knives in order to kill as many as quickly as possible.  
  
Eventually, after Faith had defeated the dozenth vampire, there was a pause in battle.  
  
"Who are you?" One of them hissed.  
  
Faith toyed with the idea of saying "Your worst nightmare," but it seemed so cliche and old that Buffy would have been shaking her head in shame. Puns were a very important weapon to a slayer. So instead, she decided to go with the truth and let her moves do the showing off.  
  
"I'm Faith, the Vampire Slayer."  
  
There was another eery pause, and then one of the vampires from the corner, up till now a mere observer, stepped closer. He was strikingly handsome and walked with a swagger of power.  
  
"Funny, I heard the slayers were just a myth." He said.  
  
"You heard wrong." She replied, just as offhandedly.  
  
The other vampires lurched forward, ready to begin fighting again, but the one vampire held them off with a raised hand.  
  
"Well, since you introduced yourself so politely, the least I could do is return the favor. People around here call me Deacon Frost. A humble leader in this here vampire community."  
  
"Never heard of you." She replied. "Must be one of the smaller leaders."  
  
It didn't really make a difference, though. Faith didn't know any leaders at all. Something she'd have to work on as soon as she got some connections.  
  
The corner of Frost's lips twitched upwards, "Big talk coming from a girl two steps away from death."  
  
Faith moved so quickly, faster then most vampires could, and brought her stake to his chest. It stopped an inch away from her target, hovering with intimidation. "That's one step more then you've got." She quipped.  
  
He looked down at the stake, seeing her threat as genuine, and looked up at her. His eyes were more amused and pleasantly surprised then worried. "Didn't your mother ever teach you never to play with sharp objects?"  
  
"No, but then again she was too busy with the booze and the fucking to pay attention to what I played with. Now, tell your men to back off or you're nothing more then dust in the wind."  
  
Deacon eyed her for a second, and then complied. "Do what she says, boys."  
  
The other vampires backed off, some hissing and wreathing with anger. They slowly walked across the expanse of the dance floor to the steel door entrance. The vampires moved slowly out of the way, eyes awaiting an error on Faith's part to make this situation more pleasant for them. She didn't though, make an error or a pleasant situation.  
  
What she did do was make it out of the room full of hundreds of hungry and pissed off vampires alive, accompanied only by one Deacon Frost. She locked the steel door behind her, although she know that wouldn't hold them for long, and turned back to Frost.  
  
"You know, not many could walk away like that. You still might not."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah." He shifted and moved so suddenly that Faith was caught off guard. He had her in a tight headlock in less then a second. "What do you say now?"  
  
She struggled in his grip, finding it well secure. "I'm still going to get out of here."  
  
"Why's that? I'll kill you before you have the chance to move."  
  
She stopped struggling, feeling the cool touch of his cheek next to hers."No, you won't. Because you've got the look of a man who likes challenges, and I'm not one to play easy."  
  
He smirked, "I think I'm beginning to like you, Faith."  
  
"Yeah, well. The feeling ain't mutual, Frost. I've played the bad side before and it got old. Trust me when I say, you're just another dead vampire to me."  
  
"I guess that would make you just another dead Slayer to me," He replied, and then, as quick as he was there, he was gone. Vanished into the night where Faith couldn't see him at all. Tired, and more then a little pissed off that he got the better of her, she cautiously walked out of the building and down the street.  
  
She didn't even notice the dark figure of another man standing in the corner shadows. She didn't notice the dark glasses and the long leather coat, covering an arsenal of deadly high-tech weaponry, the least of which was a namesake silver sword that was secured in a back-scabbard.  
  
And she didn't notice that he'd been watching her since the moment she stepped into the club. She didn't notice anything at all.  
  
But he'd been there, watching. And his name was Blade.  
  
--------  
  
Blade pulled his midnight black '69 Oldsmobile into the abandoned factory location that he had been calling home for several years now. He got out of his car, pulling off his sunglasses.  
  
"Whistler!" He called out, slamming the car door.  
  
Whistler, a man in his late sixties, hobbled out of the shadows leaning heavily on a cane. His face was wrinkled with age and hard experience, but with it came a dedication and ability to kick the living shit out of any man half his age. He took one look at the tall, and what to most would be an extremely intimidating, man approaching him and sensed his mood.  
  
"What bug crawled up your ass and died?" He questioned. It was his way of asking how his night went.  
  
"I found a vampire safe house last night. Went looking for Deacon Frost." Blade said, walking past him and depositing his weaponry onto a worktable. Whistler noticed that most, if not all, of the ammo was still there.  
  
"And?" Whistler urged on, "did you meet Cinderella at the ball or not?"  
  
"In more ways then one." Blade turned to face him, dark eyes discontent. "What do you know about the Slayer?"  
  
"The Slayer?" Whistler repeated, "Nothing more then a boogie man story for vampires. A myth. A legend. Why?"  
  
Blade stared back at him, immobile. "There was a human at the club yesterday. She's was meant to be food."  
  
Whistler paused, sensing there was a twist ahead. "And?"  
  
"She surprised them."  
  
Whistler shifted, "How many she kill?"  
  
"More then a dozen, and then she walked away from their nest with Deacon Frost as her captor."  
  
"Deacon Frost - You see him?"  
  
Bladed nodded. "He vanished before I had a chance to introduce myself."  
  
"And the girl, she's still alive?"  
  
"So far."  
  
"Are you positive she was human?"  
  
Blade just stared back at him, saying nothing.  
  
"Right, stupid question." Whistler amended. He knew how honed Blade's senses were to such things.  
  
"She called herself the Slayer."  
  
Whistler thought about that for a second, and ultimately concluded, "Damn stupid thing to do. Now every vampire in the city will be hunting her. Although they aren't the type to let anyone live after seeing their layer . . . I'll try and find out anything I can about her. Did you get a name?"  
  
"Faith. Tell me old man, if they think she's just a myth, why would they be so concerned?" "Most vampires think you're just a myth." Whistler pointed out.  
  
Blade grinned, "I'm not a myth. I'm just their worst nightmare."  
  
---  
  
In a large, minimalist conference room, there gathered the House of Erebus, a vampire race's governing assemble made up of twelve vampire elders. The current vampire "Overlord," Gaetano Dragonetti, spoke at the head of the long mahogany table.  
  
"So then the rumors are true, the Slayer is in town."  
  
"You knew?" Deacon Frost (to most in this room, a lowly vampire,) questioned. "Why didn't you tell us?"  
  
"For as long as there have been vampires, there has been a Slayer. It serves us no purpose to relinquish assets to kill her when another would immediately arise."  
  
"But there are other rumors," another Elder questioned from across the table, "that the Powers That Be have granted the powers to all Potentials. They are rumors of an army of Slayers."  
  
"Those are absurd rumors and until they are undeniably confirmed, I'll waste no breath on them. There has and always will be only one Slayer for every generation. That is the long standing way of things."  
  
Frost ridiculed this statement with a disdainful laugh, "But times are changing. How long have I been saying that? You all are caught up in a world that's been over for centuries."  
  
"Deacon Frost, you have not been recognized to speak! There is a way to how things are done. Have you no respect for tradition?"  
  
"Why should I respect something that has outlived it's purpose?" Deacon replied, heatedly.  
  
"That is enough!" Dragonetti ordered, "We have enough problems without adding your childish impudence. This council was called for two reasons and two reasons, only. The Slayer, and the growing concern of the Day Walker. We have no time to babysit your adolescent outbursts."  
  
Frost's eyes flashed with anger, but he held himself in check because this was the Council. If he were to strike out at them, an idea that had been growing more appetizing as days went on, he couldn't afford to do it so foolishly. It was this thought that held him seated in his chair instead of what his entire being was telling him to do.  
  
Kill them all.  
  
The Elders, however, took this silence as his submission to them. They nodded and continued with the meeting.  
  
"What shall we do regarding these two? The Slayer and the Day Walker?"  
  
"They must be destroyed. We cannot allow them to continue with their vain crusades anymore. Blade has been a thorn in our sides long enough, and as far as the Slayer goes, we'll kill her and deal with the next one when she comes."  
  
Deacon lost his inner battle to stay silent. "Your wrong again, Dragonett. The Day Walker represents a unique opportunity. We'd be fools to waste it by killing him. Why should we spend our lives cringing from the daylight when his blood holds the key to offering us an alternative? Enough talk. It's time we stepped out of the shadows!"  
  
Dragonett sighed, "The shadows suit us, Frost. We've existed this way for thousands of years. Who are you to challenge our ways?"  
  
"Someone who's sick of spending our lives cringing from daylight, from our food, when we should be ruling it like the Gods we are."  
  
"That's enough! Frost, leave this meeting and don't come back until you have learned the meaning of humility. Or we will be forced to teach it to you."  
  
Frost rose from his chair, grabbing his coat. He looked accusingly at the Overlord. "Careful, old fang. You might wake up one day and find yourself extinct."  
  
-  
  
"Blade!" Whistler called out, walking into the building with a heavy limp. His legs were killing him today.  
  
From behind him, Bladed landed from the second story balcony, silent and graceful as a feline predator. Whistler turned and glared for a moment, silently cursing the younger man for such agility when he had trouble taking a leak. "I've found your mystery women." He declared, and then turned to walk towards the fridge. He pulled it open and grabbed the vodka bottle from the back, which were the only contents of the fridge besides a cheese sandwich of questionable age. He took a swig of the bottle and slammed it down onto the counter, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "She was easy to find, too. Too easy. The vampires probably had her address hours ago."  
  
"Daylight will save her time from the vampires." Blade replied, although he knew they had their ways for working around daylight when necessary.  
  
"Not from their Familiars." Whistler countered, referring to the humans who worked for the vampires. He pulled out a piece of paper with the address written on it. "She's been stayin' at disreputable motel downtown for over a month now. I couldn't get a last name or much of any other information like that. As far as the clerk knows, she paid for the room in advance for two months and has been living alone ever since. No visitors, few phone calls, and not much of a talker. She's a loner."  
  
Blade made no comment.  
  
Whistler eyed him for a second, "I don't have to tell you that the word on the street is that vampires and familiars have orders to kill her on sight. She might not make it through the day. The reason I'm stating the obvious here is because you need to decide what to do, if anything. You don't know who this girl is. Slayer or no Slayer, she could be our enemy, too. Is she worth the risk?"  
  
"She's worth taking a look." Blade replied.  
  
Whistler damn near raised an eyebrow at that. She must have been something to catch Blade's eye like this. Blade's attention usually never wavered from his target. "You better move quick, then."  
  
Blade grabbed the address, "What did your other contacts say about the Slayer?"  
  
Whistler smirked, "I'll give you a direct quote. A guy that works in the corner magic shop is apparently a strong believer in this stuff. I don't use him often, cause the guys more paranoid then I am. But something he said stuck with me. He said, and quote, 'in every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.' What do you say to that?"  
  
"I say, he's been watching too much TV."  
  
"That's what I thought, too. Until . . ." Whistler took another swig from his bottle, not believing he was actually going to say what he was going to say. "Thing of it is, I've always heard there was more evil in the world then just vampires. Werewolves, demons, witches. Never bothered to learn too much because they never presented a problem to me. But, if there is, it'd be nice to know there was something . . ." He sighed, "never mind, I just need another drink."  
  
He grabbed the bottle and chugged down more bitter liquid. He felt foolish for bringing it up now, but something inside him that wasn't dead or dying from misery, something that he had a whole lot more of when his family was alive, hoped that the stories he heard of Slayers held some substance. The closest he ever got to thinking there was a greater power working for them instead of trying to kill them was when he'd discovered Blade.  
  
Blade was the only person Whistler knew to be born for this fight. He both hoped and feared for another like him to exist. If the Slayer was real . . . Christ, somebody shoot him. He was getting sentimental.  
  
"Your getting senile in your old age, Whistler." Blade commented, a touch of amusement and (only Whistler would be able to notice) concern.  
  
"Get out of here." Whistler muttered, "and take the ear piece radio receiver. I want to be able to chaperone you two."  
  
Blade nodded and turned to leave.  
  
"Oh, and Blade." He added, almost as an afterthought. "Word on the street is that there's a price on your head, too. The Council's made you a top priority."  
  
"I'm flattered."  
  
"Don't be." Whistler responded, the corner of his lips turning up. "They put a higher price on the Slayer." 


End file.
